


Overwatch was a Mistake

by Jakallx



Series: Chaotic Threads: Reaper76 Week [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Beach Holidays, Gabe still loves him though, M/M, Post-Recall, Speedos, everyone drags Jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 09:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9378359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jakallx/pseuds/Jakallx
Summary: Gabriel Reyes just wants to lie on the beach and relax after a mission. Too bad for him he has an embarrassing husband who has a new-found love for Speedos.Cue the horror.





	

The scream cut through the air, slicing the world in two and throwing Gabriel Reyes out of his blissful nap and into high alert. Instincts and years of training kicked in as he leapt up off the sand, turning to face the threat—

Well… he tried to. Something in his back went ‘crick’, and he found himself clutching his spine in excruciating pain, and wishing he wasn’t so damn _old_.

Blinking away the tears in his eyes, he finally managed to see what had caused the scream.

It was Hana, her youthful face twisted in horror as she pointed at a man who had his hands on his hips and a thoroughly unimpressed look on his face.

A pasty white man.

An _old_ pasty white man.

An old pasty white man in _speedos_.

They left nothing at all up to the imagination.

Gabriel almost added his own scream to the terrifying scene unfolding on the popular Australian beach. Instead, he channelled his intense embarrassment of his husband into something more constructive and laughed in Jack’s face.

“Oh come on. Not you too,” Jack’s gravelly voice seemed unsuited to anything except barking orders, but he hadn’t done much of that in the last couple of years. Neither of them had.

After Gabriel had been brought …back, and those who had caused Overwatch’s downfall had paid for their crimes, they had both decided to stay on and help the transition of the new Overwatch. But it was no longer _their_ Overwatch. Sure, they occasionally tagged along on a mission, but most of the time Gabriel guarded his semi-retired status like a rabid dog. He only accepted missions that came with perks like this particular one. He and Hana had conspired to have it completed several days earlier than expected and of course, Hana had simply neglected to inform Winston of this fact. And so the team found themselves lazing on the beach and soaking up the Australian sun.

And of course, he only took missions that Jack was also assigned to. He had vowed to never let that man out of his sight again.

He wholeheartedly regretted this decision as Jack gave him the finger and stalked over to where their towels were laid out on the beach (though Gabriel had to admit that the speedos showed off his ass quite nicely). Jack grumpily sat down on his towel, wiggling his butt in the sand to get comfortable.

Gabriel was still caught off-guard by how much Jack didn’t act his age sometimes. The grouchy old man visage would slip off and underneath was the beautiful, youthful and socially-awkward butterfly he had fallen in love with all those years ago. Gabriel shrugged at Hana and grinned as he sat down next to his husband. Old man Jack wasn’t all that bad, but he was painfully embarrassing sometimes. Not like Gabriel. Out of the pair of them, he was definitely still the cool one.

“I did not sign up for this,” said Hana, averting her eyes.

“No, you signed up to be a hero,” Gabriel replied in a serious voice. He caught Jack nodding along in agreement. “And sometimes, being a hero means suffering through other people’s fashion choices.”

Jack’s face goes slack and he slowly turned to Gabriel. “I will not take a fashion insult,” he said, voice deadly quiet, “from a man who spent six years wearing Hot Topic’s clearance rack.”

Gabriel stared down at Jack for a moment before letting the smile creep onto his face again. He shrugged and lay back down on his own towel, stretching out in the sunlight, feeling it infuse his cold bones, the last side-effect left over from the resurrection. He’d made peace with that part of himself. And besides, Reaper had looked _fucking awesome_ , and Jack was a fool for thinking otherwise.

 “How come Roadhog gets to wear speedos and nobody says anything?” Jack was sulkily watching Junkrat and Roadhog as they built a sandcastle down by the shoreline.

Gabriel sat up again and gave Jack a look that said, _do you really want to be the one to question Roadhog about his love of speedos?_

Jack pouted his lips at that. _Fair point_. He popped open a tube ofSPF50+ sunscreen to begin rubbing it onto his arms.

Gabriel snorted and glanced back down to the shoreline about to lie back down on his towel, finally able to relax. The skinny arsonist was decorating his sandcastle towers with what looked like fireworks…

—fireworks?! Gabriel bolted upright again and squinted down at the two Australians in dismay. They really did have fireworks. Well, Junkrat did—Roadhog was using delicate seashells to decorate his half of the castle. Godamnit. Gabriel had no idea _how_ the little fucker managed to get a hold of illegal explosives at literally every opportunity he was left unsupervised, but somehow he did. He sighed and rubbed a hand down his reconstructed face, feeling his scars stretch and pull under his fingertips. He couldn’t have a moment of peace, could he? Just one minute to lie down in the sun without dealing with embarrassing husbands or letting insane pyromaniacs blow up half the beach.

Hana was still hovering about, clearly torn between the desire to drag Jack some more, and the need to never look in his direction again. She was the leader on this mission anyway. And you know what—Gabriel was suddenly struck with the realisation—she could do her job. Take responsibility for her subordinates and the safety of the civilians with which they were sharing the beach with.

“Hana,” Gabriel got her attention and then gestured down to the shoreline where Junkrat was crowning the top of his castle with a particularly big rocket.

Hana’s eyes bugged out and she cursed. She turned back to Gabriel and Jack but managed to get a particularly horrific eyeful of Jack’s speedos since he was rubbing sunscreen into his thighs.

“Oh my god. Why?” she dragged her hands down either side of her face in despair, while trying to look anywhere but at Jack. It was a look Gabriel was familiar with, having made it many times himself over the years.

Then she put steel in her eyes and hunched her shoulders forward. “Overwatch was a mistake,” she gritted out before she marched off down the beach to deal with Junkrat.

 “I’ll have to warn the others before they accidentally gouge out their own eyes by looking this way.”  Her parted mutterings were just loud enough for Jack to hear.

Jack sighed and looked down at his legs. “You don’t think I’m embarrassing, do you?”

He sounded so defeated that Gabriel’s heart broke just a tiny bit. Oh god, he had to patch this up, so he patted Jack on one of his blindingly white thighs and said, “Babe, you make having eyes again worth it.”

Jack’s face went a little red than it already was.

Honestly, Jack was such a dork. Gabriel shook his head at his husband, feeling the tug of the smile at his lips.

Jack noticed and raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

He shrugged, almost not willing to answer, but at the same time he was curious. “Just thought you would have been the first one to be down there, sorting that out.” He vaguely gestured to where Hana was now in a loud argument with Junkrat, both of them shouting and gesturing wildly at the fireworks on the sandcastle. Junkrat was losing fast in this particular match-up, his composure withering as Hana gave him a thorough dressing down.

Jack snorted, fixing him with his piercing blue gaze. “Like you can talk. You were ready to jump up and go down there to deal with it yourself.”

Gabriel looked away, caught out. He was almost surprised with how much they had both changed. And also how much they hadn’t. It wasn’t the same as it was before, they could never go back to that, but both of them had never been that good at moving on from each other. Or from the job.

Gabriel watched the scene down at the shoreline come to an abrupt conclusion when a particularly aggressive wave on the incoming tide completely wiped out the sandcastle and all the fireworks atop it. Junkrat dropped to his knees with a wail, shaking his fists at the sky while Hana loomed over him with her hands on her hips. Roadhog quietly began picking his seashells out of the ruined castle.

Gabriel couldn’t have stopped the grin from creeping onto his face if he had tried. He picked up his pair of sunglasses and slid them on. “You know,” he turned back to Jack who was watching him with his own little smile, his scarred lips quirking up. “I would have once. But then I remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

Gabriel lay back down on his towel and finally let the sunlight soak into his old bones.

“That I’m semi-retired and it ain’t my fucking problem anymore. I’m on holiday.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I googled 'Speedos' for this fic and regretted it. Halp.
> 
> This was dumb. I hope you like it. 
> 
> Inspired by one of [Hanji's tweets](https://twitter.com/SiIent_Dreams?lang=en) (even if they don't remember it lol) 
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Jakallx) and [tumblr](http://jakallx.tumblr.com/)


End file.
